Students at The George Washington University wax eloquent on all things North Korean

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Issues with taking North Korea off of terrorist list

An article in the New York Times today illustrates the current issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons, its relationship with Japan, and the likelihood of removing North Korea from the US's terrorist list. Japan, who plans to discuss this issue when Condoleezza Rice visits soon, wants North Korea to discuss issues of Japanese abductions that occurred in the 1970s and 80s, of which some were returned and some were pronounced dead. Before sending any aid, Japan wants to know details about the deaths of those kidnapped. What is interesting about this article is that North Korea could possibly hand over a list of their nuclear activity as early as Thursday. This would be a huge step in normalizing North Korea's relationship with the United States and other foreign powers in regards to nuclear stability and a slight opening of North Korean society. Yet the article continues saying that the removal of North Korea from the blacklist is not eminent and will be a long process, but will consider Japan's request. Yet, from this article, there is obvious connotations of the eventuality of removing North Korea off the terrorist list as well as the possibility of getting to the bottom of the North Korean nuclear capability, which up until now has been marred with secrecy.

1 comment:

Recent news about North Korea potentially being removed from the terrorist list seem really superficial to me. Although North Korea greatly values its status abroad, I do not believe that removal from the list will really change the world's impression of the communist dictatorship.